Justice John Paul Stevens, whose evolving judicial opinions eventually solidified him as a staunch liberal during his more than three decades on the Supreme Court, has died at the age of 99.
Stevens died Tuesday evening at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, of complications from a stroke he suffered Monday, the Supreme Court said in a statement.
“A son of the Midwest heartland and a veteran of World War II, Justice Stevens devoted his long life to public service, including 35 years on the Supreme Court,” Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement. “He brought to our bench an inimitable blend of kindness, humility, wisdom and independence. His unrelenting commitment to justice has left us a better nation.”
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump offered condolences to Stevens’ family and friends, and said his “passion for the law and for our country” won’t be forgotten.
“A decorated World War II Naval Officer, Justice Stevens was known for his humility, legal acumen, and affection for his beloved Chicago Cubs,” the White House said in a statement. “His work over the course of nearly 35 years on the Supreme Court will continue to shape the legal framework of our Nation for years to come.”
Born in Chicago in 1920, Stevens served in the U.S. Navy for three years and went on to have a legal career that spanned nearly 65 years and included a practice as a successful antitrust lawyer. Stevens served for five years as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit before being appointed by President Gerald Ford to the Supreme Court in 1975, where he sat for more than 34 years. The third-longest-serving justice in the history of the court, Stevens retired at the age of 90 and was replaced by President Barack Obama with Justice Elena Kagan. Obama awarded Stevens with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2012.
Appointed as a registered Republican, Stevens’ opinions quickly deviated from traditional conservative legal philosophy, vehemently opposing originalist constitutional interpretation.
“To suggest that the law is static is quite wrong,” Stevens said in a 2010 interview with NPR. “The whole purpose was to form a more perfect union, not something that’s perfect when we started.”
Previously opposed to affirmative action in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, he later voted to uphold the practice in a landmark decision in 2003. His views on the First Amendment’s establishment clause also swung more liberal as he struck down school prayer in Wallace v. Jaffree and dissented in Van Orden v. Perry where the display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol was upheld.
He took stands against flag burning, the decision in Citizens United that labeled campaign contributions by corporations and unions as speech, and the court’s decision to stop the 2000 Florida ballot recount.
Perhaps one of his most scathing dissents came in District of Columbia v. Heller. Stevens rejected the notion that the Second Amendment was meant to protect the personal right of a citizen to own firearms. In a New York Times op-ed, he later called for the repeal of the Second Amendment in light of the Parkland shooting and March for Our Lives protests.
Witnessing people taking to the streets across the country, Stevens wrote in favor of enacting legislation to ban civilian ownership of semi-automatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun to 21, and establishing more exhaustive background checks.
He added, “But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand the repeal of the Second Amendment.”
Stevens was regarded by many as the chief justice of the court’s liberal wing. Despite Stevens’ liberal leaning, Ford continued to praise his performance on the bench. In 2005 Ford said, “He is serving his nation well, with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns.”
In his lengthy interview with NPR, he said the only vote he regretted was one that affirmed the usage of the death penalty.
Stevens remained engaged in politics even in retirement, asserting that Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not belong on the bench during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Stevens initially supported Kavanaugh, but said Kavanaugh’s “performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind.”
Stevens believed that he “demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the (high) court that he would not be able to perform his full responsibilities.”
He was also the author of three books, the last of which, an autobiography entitled The Making of a Justice, Reflections on My First 94 Years, was released this year.
The Chicago native was born on April 20, 1920. Before he began his career in law, he served as an intelligence officer in the Navy during WWII. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his work in codebreaking while serving in the Pacific and later graduated from Northwestern University’s law school. He then clerked for Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge.
Stevens’ first wife, Elizabeth Jane, and second wife, Maryan Mulholland, preceded him in death, as did his two children, John Joseph and Kathryn. He is survived by his two daughters, Elizabeth Jane Sesemann, and Susan Roberta Mullen, nine grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.
